Queen of Air and Darkness
by stefanie bean
Summary: A sensual, bittersweet tale of Hurley's visit to Seoul.
1. Approaching LAX

**If you are familiar with LOST,** _this story takes place during and after "Ji Yeon," 4x07, and is a "deleted scene" of what happened during that visit._

**If you are unfamiliar with LOST: **_En route from Sydney to Los Angeles,** Oceanic Flight 815** crashes on an uncharted Pacific island. The survivors struggle with their troubled pasts, their inner demons, each other, and malevolent Island entities and people bent on their destruction. Around three months after the crash, six of the castaways ("the Oceanic Six") are rescued. They include the the wealthy and beautiful **Sun Kwon**, whose husband **Jin Kwon** has apparently been killed right before the rescue. Jin, the son of a poor and humble fisherman, concealed his background from Sun out of shame, and his relationship with his wife was strained and troubled. The pregnant Sun returns to her family home in Seoul, takes over her gangster-businessman father's company, and has a little girl named **Ji Yeon**._

_Sun invites the rest of the "Oceanic Six" to visit her in Seoul to see her new daughter and commemorate Jin's tombstone, but the only one who makes the trip is **Hugo "Hurley" Reyes**, a shy and kindly former mental patient who on the surface plays the "funny fat guy," but who has surprising depths, including psychic abilities. This is my imagining of what happened._

* * *

**Chapter 1: Approaching LAX**

The Oceanic Six returned to the ordinary world in early 2005, but the lies they told stuck in Hugo Reyes's gorge like food going too fast down the throat.

At first it felt good to bathe in love and attention, especially from his dad. Even better, Kate, Sayid and Nadia had decided to put down roots in Los Angeles. Jack didn't count, because in the first place, he was from LA. In the second, he didn't have anything to do with the rest of them, not even Kate.

As the months wore on, LA started to suffocate Hugo. For one thing, his mom wasn't so understanding anymore. When was he going to get out and, well, do something? Anything? At least before the Oceanic 815 crash, when his mom had nagged him about "doing nothing but lifting a drumstick to his mouth," he'd had a full-time job. Not much of one, but a job nonetheless. Now he didn't. There didn't seem to be much point.

What his mom wouldn't say, his dad would. "What about that girl you always hanging with? Pretty hard-core, huh, having that baby all by herself on a deserted island. Good for you she got some load-bearing hips."

David Reyes's smirk just made it worse. If Hugo gave his dad the side-eye, David would ramp it up with a raucous laugh. "What's the matter, she give you the old 'Oh, we're just friends' routine? Be persistent, son, maybe you can talk her into something. That's how I landed your mother."

"She's got a boyfriend, Dad. That doctor, the one from the crash."

David sniffed and said, "She got a doctor boyfriend, but she's hanging around with you. What are you, her handbag? If you don't step up to the plate, son, you'll never hit a home run. You won't even get a pop fly."

When Kate came to visit, Aaron crawled around the living room rug, trying to pull himself up on the coffee table. Kate held onto the back of Aaron's overalls so he wouldn't crack his head on the glass, while Hugo's dad got more and more insufferable. David would lean into the room with a half-grin on his face, or stick his head in the door as he went from the kitchen to the den.

Finally Hugo just told Kate, "Can we hang out at your house? Because my dad-"

"I know," was all Kate had to say.

Then Jack and Kate did start taking up with each other again. To fill the long afternoons and evenings, Hugo started driving around LA in an old 1974 Ford Pinto salvaged from his dad's brother Emil's body shop. Instead of scrapping the battered rust-bucket, Uncle Emil let Hugo pound on it to the point where it would at least pass inspection.

"What you want that Pinto for?" Emil said. "All somebody has to do is rear-end you, and boom."

All Hugo would say was, "I like it. It fits me."

Emil just looked at him, not saying anything, not wanting to ask if his nephew meant the wide, generous front seat, or… something else.

* * *

The Pinto wasn't the only car that had passed through Uncle Emil's shop. His dad had restored the red 1971 Camaro hardtop and given it to Hugo for a belated birthday present. It sat in the garage unused, next to his 2003 yellow Hummer H2.

On his drives around LA, Hugo would pull off the San Diego Freeway at the El Segundo Boulevard exit, then wind through the surface streets to get as close as he could to the LAX runways. He never parked there very long, not wanting airport security to get too curious about what he was doing there.

Whenever he could, though, he'd stare at the jets as they slid up and down their ordained paths, and covered the sky with their criss-crossed trails. Jet noise joined with rumbles from the highway to make a deafening roar, one which might almost drown out his fears and recriminations and regrets.

The massive planes made Hugo think of that final approach to LAX, when the cars on the 405 looked just like tiny ants scurrying about, busy with their insignificant lives.

No doubt someone in one of those jets was staring down at the freeway right now, maybe even focused on the very spot where Hugo was parked. That stranger might wonder for a few seconds what that car was doing there, before leaning back and gripping the arm-rests with sweating palms.

If he really wanted to go somewhere, all Hugo had to do was walk up to the Oceanic Airlines ticket counter and show his Gold Pass. Anywhere in the world, on the house.

Every time he planned to leave, though, something came up. His mother and father threw him a party. Jack wanted him to come to his father's memorial service. Then, since Jack was so much busier at the hospital now, would Hurley like to come by Kate's house, have some virgin Long Island iced tea, swim in the pool?

All this Hugo did with good graces, but the skies beckoned. At night he lay awake for hours, wondering if he should go back on the clonazepem, if it would do any good.

Hugo sold the Hummer to some guy in the neighborhood for cash, then stuffed the wads of bills into the St. Vincent DePaul Society poor-box at Our Lady of Lourdes parish, trying not to look at the long lines for the food pantry.

At first he hadn't wanted to drive the Camaro, but his dad convinced him otherwise. It's not like it was bought with lottery money or something. Did he want all that work to go to waste? Anyway, either his dad had taken the Camaro out around the block more than a few times, or Hugo had hallucinated the Numbers in the mileage on the odometer. Maybe it was the first. Please, let it be the first.

The panic faded all on its own as the clonazepem prescription sat on his dresser-top, unfilled.

Uncle Emil talked Hugo into letting him sell the Pinto for scrap. Afterwards, over a couple of tall cold ones, Emil said to his brother, "I tell you, that car's a bomb. And he was never gonna get a girl with that beater, anyway."

David Reyes just shook his head.

* * *

One balmy September afternoon right after Labor Day, Hugo sat parked by the LAX east runway, watching the fishbelly-white underside of a 747 as it came in for a landing. His phone chimed out the first six notes of _Ave Maria_, which meant a call from his mother.

Over the final fading jet-screams, his mother shouted into the phone, and Hugo almost couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Some woman just phoned the house looking for you," Carmen said. "And not that Kate, either. You listen to me, that one, she's just stringing you along while she's in between boyfriends."

"Mom-" Hugo protested, but Carmen was on a roll now.

"So this woman who called you, she got some funny Chinese name, what was it? I can't remember. Anyway, she wanted your phone number, but I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday."

On she went. Phone calls from youngish-sounding women didn't happen to Hugo every day, Carmen relentlessly pointed out. In fact, those hardly ever happened at all. So she agreed to pass the woman's number on to her son, even though it was against her better judgment.

"Mom," Hugo sighed in love and exasperation, "It's OK. Just give me the number."

After Hugo hung up, he stared at the unrecognized digits which he'd just keyed in. He thought about making a voice call, but instead texted, "Hey, Hurley here." It was probably nothing, most likely just another scammer. Those weren't so bad, though. In fact, some of them were downright amusing. It might be a reporter, but they stopped calling a few weeks after the Oceanic Six had been back.

The worst, though, were the family members.

Hugo dreaded the calls from relatives of Flight 815 passengers, people who wanted to know what really had happened to their wife or husband or son. Not that PR bullshit from the news, either. The families' need for closure ripped open a whole host of wounds Hugo would rather have left untouched.

When he'd first gotten back to the States, Hugo had talked to a few of them, but soon he could no longer bear to lie through his teeth, saying he didn't know anything. More often than not he did know how they had died, sometimes in horrible ways.

No one from Libby's family ever contacted him, though. Sometimes he wondered about that, but fear of breaking the Oceanic Six pact of silence kept him from tracking down any of her people.

Months had passed since Hugo had heard from any Oceanic crash family members, though. He put his phone in the drink tray, thinking to cruise by In-N-Out Burger for a couple of Double-Doubles and a vanilla shake, when his phone beeped.

_Well, here goes nothing_, he thought. He flipped the phone open, and almost dropped it onto his lap. The name on the caller ID was printed in letters as small as his current prospects for happiness.

They read, "Paik Sun-Hwa." The message was, "Hey yourself."

Hugo called her back, but got sent to voice mail, which led to a game of telephone tag for the next few days. When he finally spoke with her, he almost couldn't understand her soft, formal phone voice, more shy and hesitant than he remembered from the Island.

He clearly remembered the last time he'd seen her. When the Oceanic Six survivors had landed in Honolulu's Hickham Field, Sun's parents had bundled her into a limousine whose driver looked like a linebacker. A large, dark-suited man rode shotgun. Bodyguards, Hugo thought at the time.

Up till that surprising text message, he'd heard no word from Sun.

Her small voice crept over the airwaves, inciting and saddening him at the same time. Jin-Soo Kwon's tombstone had finally been completed. Would he like to come to Seoul and see it? It was such a long flight, fourteen hours from Los Angeles. The way she said it sounded like she was apologizing for such a fundamental flaw in the planet's geography.

"It is a lot to ask," she concluded. "I will understand if it is too much."

"So, what about Jack, Kate, Sayid?"

"I've invited them too, of course. But it could be a challenge for Kate with Aaron. And Sayid and Nadia, I don't know…" Her voice trailed off.

"I hear you." Hugo knew what was up with that. Sayid and Nadia could leave the United States anytime they wanted, but getting back in might be another story.

Sun repeated, "If it is too difficult, Hurley, I understand."

"Name the date, and I'll be there."

"A week from now? It's short notice, I know. That's not a problem?"

"Not for me," Hugo told her.

She made a faint drawn-in _ahhh_ sound, as if everything was explained and already settled. Her soft deference wrapped a string of tenderness around his heart, and he could barely manage to sputter out that he wouldn't miss it for anything.

(_continued_)


	2. Budai, Budai

**Chapter 2: Budai, Budai**

Hugo found a tailor over in Culver City who claimed that he could run up a suit in a few days. "Those award ceremonies," the wrinkled old man said with a grin as he wrapped his tape measure around Hugo's middle, not even commenting about the inchage. "They're my bread and butter."

The price was staggering, with payment in full in advance. Hugo counted out the hundred-dollar bills in front of the tailor, who seemed completely unflapped at the size of the pile on the counter. It occurred to Hugo that one reason rich people acted like gods was because of the freedom which money brought. He could walk into any airport and fly anywhere the planes went. If he needed clothes (and it was hard enough to find clothes, he knew that from long experience), and had a little time, there they were.

It almost became too easy after awhile. It went to your head.

The suit displeased Hugo, although he had to admit the fit was good, better than any he had before. Its wide lapels and pinstripes of glittering thread made him look like an enforcer for the Mob. It was too late to have another one made, though.

Because of that suit, security at the LAX international terminal was a bit more thorough with him than they needed to be. That, and the cash he'd never gotten out of the habit of carrying.

Hugo couldn't sleep on the long flight to Seoul, and found himself thinking more of Sun's late husband Jin-Soo Kwon than of Sun herself. It seemed so long ago that the Oceanic 815 survivors had first come to live on the beach, on the Island. Sun's husband Jin could only speak Korean, it seemed, but not everyone thought so. The talk around the beach camp was that he was just faking it, to have an excuse to go off with his wife so that they could live by themselves, so that they wouldn't have to chip in with the increasing amounts of work required for basic survival.

One day shortly after the crash, Hugo decided to test Jin. It was a dangerous experiment, because Jin had quite a temper, and was intensely jealous besides. Hugo sidled up to Jin while Jin was cleaning fish, and said in a conversational tone, "Your wife is hot." If Jin took a swing at him, Hugo was prepared to roll on the sand in a fetal position, hoping and praying that someone would come quickly enough to pull Jin off before Jin broke something critical in Hugo's face.

Jin had just looked puzzled, and had gone on cutting out fish guts for chum, throwing occasional tidbits to the gulls which waited at a respectful distance.

Hugo wasn't lying about Sun. He and practically every other man on the beach had been watching her, especially Michael Dawson. Jin's fierce hatred of Michael had prompted Hugo's cautious yet perverse desire to test the limits of Jin's understanding.

Sun had a way about her, that was for sure. She moved with demure, restrained grace, but something smoldered in her eyes when she thought no one was looking.

At first, Sun and Jin had fought so much that Hugo thought they might break up. Not that he'd have a snowball's chance with her if that happened. For one thing, there was Michael, and how she looked at him, and how it seemed that whenever Michael wasn't around on the beachfront, Sun wasn't either.

For another, every time Hugo talked to Sun, either his tongue froze in his mouth, or he said something really stupid. That didn't stop her from setting his imagination on fire, though.

His shelter sat right next to theirs, where more often than not, their high-pitched quarrels in Korean ended in soft cries and whispers, followed by the long quiet breathing which follows love-making.

Sun, in short, was out of his world, out of his league, and not just because of that giant glittering rock on her left hand.

* * *

When the taxi dropped Hugo off at the Seoul Gateway Hotel, he gaped for a moment like the tourist he was, taking it all in. But the tall, steep mountains which ringed the city reminded him too much of the Island, so he turned away and headed for the green-marbled hotel entrance.

A bellman in a top hat opened a brass-trimmed door, letting loose a bevy of girls wearing University of Seoul sweatshirts.

The girls clustered around him at the base of the marble steps, blocking his path. Chattering in Korean, they poked and prodded each other, until one reached out and patted his stomach. Then two more did the same, saying "_Budai, Budai,_" in between small laughs.

Another one said, "Snorlax." That he did understand, but he couldn't frown, because they were so amusingly birdlike, so obviously not meaning to hurt his feelings, and anyway, he'd been called worse things.

When a small young woman wearing a Hello Kitty headband exclaimed, "Totoro," it sent the whole group into gales of laughter. Suddenly, as if a wind pushed them on their way, the little flock fluttered down the sidewalk on a course all of their own, leaving him smiling and a little embarrassed at the same time.

* * *

Sun had sent a driver to take Hugo to her apartment, which was just as well. The silent chauffeur wound his way through snarled streets hung with more neon than Hugo had ever seen in his life. Sun's gleaming high-rise stood in the midst of a tangle of small streets all crammed with tall thin buildings, a vertical neighborhood which rested at the base of the mountain's encircling arms.

"Paik Sun-Hwa," he told the doorman, who nodded and made him wait for a minute in the lobby until she was ready. Then, when confronted with her closed apartment door, he barely had the nerve to knock, dreading and desiring whatever might happen next.

When the door opened, the last thing Hugo expected was to get pulled into the circle of Sun's slender arms. She stood on tip-toe, and he bent over so she could reach him better. He let his face rest in her hair, as he breathed in the scent of her delicate perfume. Everything about her was luxurious, from her cashmere dress to the spacious apartment which gleamed of dark polished wood and pale upholstery.

"You made it," Sun said. "I still can't believe you came all this way."

"Are you kidding?" There didn't seem to be anyone else in the apartment, although from the other room came faint, cooing baby noises. "Is anyone else coming?"

She shook her head, but didn't look all that disappointed. "Kate didn't want to leave Aaron. Sayid was afraid he wouldn't be able to get into the country. And Jack..." Her voice trailed off.

"Yeah, I know about Jack," Hugo said. "So it's just us." A swelling wave of hope and fear passed over him. This was excellent. Before he could stop himself, the long glad syllable left his mouth and hung in the air between them. "Good."

Under her pale porcelain makeup she flushed faintly pink. "The nanny has gone out for some formula, but she'll be back soon. Would you like to see the baby?"

In the bedroom, a little bundle of coral and white squirmed in her crib, cooing at some unseen presence up in the far corner of the ceiling. When Sun picked the baby up, she gave a little squeak, as if her mother had interrupted something important.

"Would you like to hold her?"

"I dunno. My grandpa always said I had two left hands, and needed to grow a right one."

Sun smiled and handed him the baby. "I trust you. I saw you with Aaron, remember. Her name is Ji Yeon."

"How old is she?"

"Almost four months."

"She's so tiny," Hugo remarked as he gathered the baby into his arms. He started to sway back and forth, not even aware he was making soothing, rocking movements. Little Ji Yeon curled up against him. "Aaron was almost twice her size when he was way younger."

"Boys are often bigger than girls," Sun answered, but a look passed between them. Even someone who knew nothing about babies would have noticed how huge Aaron was.

"Island mojo, I guess," Hugo said. Sun gave a little formal smile, not like the bright wide grins of the girls outside the hotel. He thought he'd better change the subject. "Hey, Sun. What's 'Budai' mean?"

Sun hesitated a moment. "_Budai_," she repeated, correcting his pronunciation. "Where did you hear that?"

"Oh, just around the hotel."

"He's the god of prosperity and good luck."

"Why am I not surprised?"

The front door opened. "Excuse me," Sun said, and spoke in Korean to the nanny, as the woman put away formula in the kitchen.

When Sun came back, Hugo looked at the baby and said, "She's so awesome. And she looks just like Jin."

Sun's smile this time was even smaller and sadder. "Yes, she does," she said, her face a cool, composed mask which shut out the world. She avoided Hugo's eyes and focused instead on the tiny girl nestled on his chest. "She's so comfortable there. It's a shame to disturb her."

It was Hugo's turn to flush now. With a hint of a tremor he said, "I guess we should, like, go see him."

"Of course," she answered, blank-faced again as she took the baby from his arms.

They rode all the way to the cemetery without saying anything, the sleeping baby in her car seat between them like a barricade.

Sun cried as she knelt before the brightly-polished new tombstone, and said a lot in Korean which she didn't share with him. Ji Yeon woke up during the drive to his hotel, so Sun busied herself soothing the fussing baby while Hugo stared out at the rolling scenery.

All too soon, the driver pulled up to the Seoul Gateway's entrance. Sun turned to Hugo and said in an uneven voice full of suppressed feeling, "There was another reason I asked you to come. It's something I haven't been able to do yet. I don't think I can, not by myself."

"Sure," said Hugo, mystified. "Anything, Sun."

"I want to go see Jin-Soo's father. Will you come with me? It will take a few days to arrange. I've tried to contact him by phone, but he hasn't returned my calls. So I'm going to send someone to tell him that we are coming."

"Sun, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, if he hasn't called you back."

"He lives in a fishing village over by Incheon. He may be out on his boat. He's an old-fashioned man, and I remember Jin-Soo telling me that he didn't carry a phone."

The driver was waiting, and cars were backing up behind them. "OK," Hugo said. "You know where to find me." He got out and waited for her to do the same so that he could hug her good-bye, but she stayed in the car. She didn't look at him or wave as the car drove off.

* * *

The hospitality staff at the Seoul Gateway were more than happy to book Mr. Reyes for an extended visit. Hugo canceled his flight back to Los Angeles, and didn't reserve another one. He wasn't much of a tourist, though, and the prospect of spending three or four more days in Seoul made his midsection churn with anxiety.

That evening, he watched an incomprehensible Japanese television show with Korean subtitles called _Kaiju Big Battel_. It was supposed to be funny, but he wasn't laughing. In fact, his own situation was too close to the victims in the show, buffeted about by big foam mallets of circumstance.

He ordered nachos with cheese and diet Coke from room service, wincing at the $55.00 price in American dollars. When the chips came, he pushed them idly around the tray, not hungry, pulled here and there by frustration and indecision.

His room faced westward, and he got up to pull the drapes against the rapidly fading twilight. In the near view sprawled the city, whose jeweled spread of lights stopped abruptly at the foot of dark mountains. Their hulking shapes crouched like giants, back-lit by the orange and purple of the setting sun.

As he closed the drapes, his heart sank. He couldn't stay here. He would call Sun and beg off. She would have to understand.

Hugo knew only too well the calling cards of his internal demons. The longer he had lived on the Island, the more they had faded, until they were a dim bad memory, seldom thought of. He remembered how Rose hadn't wanted to return to "the real world," as she had put it, because she was afraid her cancer would come back. It was like that.

He'd felt pretty good when he first had returned to Los Angeles. Well, good except for all the lies, and his parents' incomprehension and nagging. But now his demons danced on the horizon of his thoughts, the way the setting sun flickered on the tops of the Korean mountains, and he couldn't risk it. Not again.

Just as Hugo reached for his phone, it rang. He answered it without looking at the caller ID, and his heart raced at Sun's little voice. She was at the hotel right now, in the lobby. What was his room number? She would like to come up.

(_continued_)


	3. Fire on the Mountain

**Chapter 3: Fire on the Mountain**

Hugo turned off the television, and swept the remains of his dinner and the congealing nachos onto the room service tray. Then he nudged the tray in front of the door across the hall, so that it wouldn't look like it was his. Besides his suit, all he had were some t-shirts and a few pairs of cargo jeans and board shorts. He was debating which shirt to put on when he heard a few gentle knocks on the door. Quickly he grabbed a light brown t-shirt festooned with orange palms, and in his nervousness twisted it around his shoulders. He was still trying to get it adjusted around the front when he opened the door.

Sun glided into the room slowly, like a prima ballerina who steps in front of the closed curtain to take her final bow. The audience was on its feet, so she could lower herself before the crowd and take all the time she needed. No matter what she did, this night's particular performance was over. There were no more mistakes she could make, at least not during this dance. Tomorrow's performance was a long way away, so for now, at least, she could relax.

"I'm sorry I didn't ring you earlier," she said as she set down her purse on the coffee table. "I would have liked to invite you to dinner, but I had to be at a board meeting."

All Hugo could think of was, _School board_? But that didn't make any sense, because Ji Yeon was just a baby. Sun must have sensed Hugo's confusion, for she said, "I run Paik Industries with my father now. There are many meetings."

All Hugo said was, "Wow."

She looked around the room as if it was familiar to her. "Are you comfortable here? I can speak to the manager if you aren't."

"It's all great, Sun."

She lowered her head in a small half-bow, then raised her eyes to meet his, and the glowing smoulder in her expression was unmistakable. A wave of irresistible _déjà vu_ swept over him, but it wasn't because he'd ever stayed in this room before, or ever stood before Sun's warm, penetrating gaze in this very way. Sometimes, though, it can be impossible to distinguish strong imagination from memory.

He wasn't sure whether he should hug her or not, not after the cold dismissal of earlier that day. He needn't have worried, though. She walked straight up to him and put her arms around his shoulders as she had done before, in her apartment. Unlike that earlier time, though, Sun didn't pull herself out of the embrace. She stayed close, so close that Hugo couldn't help but breathe in the light sweet fragrance of her hair, something green and herbal, and the blood left his head so quickly it made him slightly dizzy.

"Hey, Sun," he said in a soft voice muffled by her hair.

She said back, "Hey, yourself," then stood on tiptoe, in order to reach as high as she could. She didn't quite kiss him so much as place her lips right over his mouth without touching, leaving it for him to decide whether to fall into the kiss or step back.

It wasn't much of a decision. Into the kiss Hugo fell like a man plunging off a cliff, and they didn't say anything for a long time after that. Her lip gloss tasted like the passion-fruit they used to eat on the Island, which he had thought so exotic at first, until it became more ordinary. She took tender little bites from his lips, and he pulled her as close as he could, taking care not to squeeze her too hard, as if she might break. Back and forth, up and down they went in each other's mouths with those long exploring kisses. Then she broke away from him and he felt a swift disappointment. Was that going to be all?

No, she had only gone to turn out the room lights, leaving the two of them momentarily swathed in thick, velvety dark. With that same seamless glide she crossed the room as if she knew it by heart, and flung open the tall curtains which went from floor to ceiling. The nighttime sky filled the entire wall of the darkened room, the lights like a splendid pile of glowing jewels tossed carelessly aside by a queen who had found something even more fascinating to occupy her attention.

In the dim pale glow of the city-scape, Sun ran her hands over Hugo everywhere, as if she wanted to memorize the entire length and breadth and shape of him. The city-shine gleamed on her hair but left her face in shadow, so that he couldn't see her expression. Her rapid breath, though, and the intense, alert stance of her shoulders let him know how interested she was. It was if she had had a long-standing curiosity which was only now being satisfied. She traveled over him like an explorer who had long since left the expedition station, and had now started up the long climb towards an unknown landscape, feeling along the passage every step along the way, not wanting to miss a single thing.

She peeled off his soft, thin t-shirt like it was a second skin. Now there was nowhere to run, no towel or shower curtain to hide behind, but then he didn't care. If her roving palms had felt good even muted by that protective layer of cloth, nothing stood in their way now as palm skin glided over delicate nipple, and he was suddenly fiercely, desperately aroused. He covered her mouth again, and now it tasted like her, only her and nothing else, because they'd kissed off all the lipstick flavor.

She turned around, back towards him, and for a second he thought he would go mad if they had to stop, but of course he would if that's what she wanted. But no, she only wanted him to unzip her tight linen sheath, and at first the zipper stuck because he could barely work his fingers. Then, as if it had a mind of its own, the zipper pulled free and slid all the way down past the curve of her bottom. She let the dress fall to the floor, and now he did lose himself in desire, because she stepped out of the collapsed linen pile ivory-pale, entirely naked.

He had never seen anyone so beautiful. Excitement had spurred him on at first, fast and urgent, but now everything halted like a movie in slow-motion. Not one of those kinds of movies, although he'd seen his share in his time, always layered over with a thin scum of shame and guilt. This was different. Hugo had come to that strange cross-roads which few ever find, where lust mutates into worship, and the only place to go is down on your knees.

At the center of every woman, at the center of every world there is a fountain, and when its waters are offered to you, you may refuse, as is your right. But if you do refuse, who knows what boons you will miss, what blessings will flow through your outstretched hands to vanish in the dry sands beneath, because you would not stoop to drink?

There was no rush. Hugo rested his mouth on first one breast, then the other, and once more she let out that long, soft _ahhh_ which wrapped itself around his heart even tighter, now that he heard it straight from her mouth. Her breasts weren't as high and firm as he remembered (oh, he would never forget those sun-drenched glory days on the beach, when he watched her exult in her newfound freedom in a bikini made of fine-woven strings which barely covered anything.) Now in his hands those perfect globes rested, still beautifully soft from pregnancy. Down he grazed over her belly, just a bit loose under the navel, where the skin was laced with tiny delicate ridges to show where Ji Yeon had lain inside her.

She parted her thighs, standing astride now, and Hugo sank down on his knees at the water's edge where first he sipped, then drank until he could hold no more, until Sun's long soft cries circled like birds over the mountains.

The moon had risen to fill the night sky, and her face gleamed under its wild pale fire. Laying her hand lightly on his shoulder, she levitated all his mass and steered it in one direction, towards the bed. He lay spread out before her vast and helpless, putty in her hands, flesh entirely open to her will, whatever that might be.

Then he was brought back to himself for a second by the crinkle of crisp foil. She knelt next to him on the bed and said, "Pink or green?"

At first he didn't know what she was talking about, having for an instant confused the two little packages in her hand with candies. What was she asking, did he want strawberry or lime, maybe? Then it hit him, of course they weren't candy. What an idiot he was. "Surprise me," he murmured.

Laughter shone in her eyes as she started unwrapping. Then her hands wandered all over him and her mouth besides, until, sprawled out before her, Sun climbed upon Hugo the way an explorer scales the mountain-side. Her tender hands trod like little feet all over his hills and dales. When she reached the summit she lay there quietly for awhile, playing with his breasts, his sides, his soft belly, as he rolled beneath her.

When together they cried out in delight, it seemed to him that it was not a woman into which he poured himself, but some green spirit who might disappear at any moment. Her gift of emerald gold might the next morning prove to be nothing but a few twigs or an old bird's nest, but he held her close and during that instant which flees even before it is completely over, he didn't care.

Hugo must have slept a little, because the next he knew, Sun had untangled herself from the circle of his arms and was pulling on her sheath dress. The clock read 2:16. "I have to go," she said in a soft apologetic voice. "They think I am at a party."

Hugo couldn't begin to imagine the network of obligations which bound her. It embarrassed him that he hadn't thought about how difficult it might have been for her to slip out. "That's cool," he said. He helped Sun zip up her dress while she slid her feet into slim, pointed shoes.

"Would you do something for me?" Sun said. "Ring the front desk, and ask them to call for a taxi for your guest. Don't say my name, just say 'my guest.' Then tell them to call your room when the taxi arrives, and to put the charge on your bill." Then, as if she knew how that sounded, she said, "I'm sorry. It's just that-"

"Hey, don't worry about it. I'm going to have to, um, turn on the light. That OK with you?"

Sun nodded, and as Hugo keyed the room service number into the phone, he noticed for the first time that she wasn't wearing her big gleaming diamond. On the phone, he did as she had told him, only flubbing it up a little. She powdered her face and put on some lipstick in front of the big mirror, its frame made of wood as dark as her hair. Hugo offered her something from the mini-bar, but Sun didn't want anything. He drank a diet soda while they waited without speaking. Then the room phone rang. The taxi had arrived.

"No, don't walk me down," Sun said as she left. "I'll get in touch with you tomorrow, when I can."

(_continued_)


	4. Armies of Ghosts

**Chapter 4: Armies of Ghosts**

The next day Hugo walked to a small park in the middle of the city, where a red and blue pagoda soared above well-kept lawns and chrysanthemum-lined paths already covered with thick autumn leaves. Then he visited a chaotic, bustling department store where he bought a few silk scarves for his mother and an embroidered leather belt for his dad. He didn't think too much of the night before, not really, but instead remembered it along the whole length of his body.

By nightfall Hugo had convinced himself that she wasn't going to call, and he almost called her himself, to tell her he was going back to Los Angeles after all. It wasn't that he was angry, but simply that he almost couldn't take the uncertainty and despair.

Also, what they were supposed to say to Jin's father, Hugo hadn't any idea. Lying to reporters and Oceanic Airlines lawyers was one thing. Lying to his parents or Jin's was another altogether. He knew his own mother didn't believe a word of that Oceanic Six cock-and-bull story, as she had put it, although she kept her peace when it became clear that he didn't want to talk about his time on the Island, or the rescue. But he often caught his mother looking at him out of the corner of her eye, waiting for him to slip up. For all he knew, it would be the same with Jin's dad. No, with Jin's dad it would be worse, because unlike Jin, Hugo had come home alive and in one piece. Jin had not. Lying about how somebody had died just made it worse.

* * *

Hugo had turned off the television and was getting ready for bed around 10 PM when that same soft knock came on his door. He thought of getting dressed again, but the idea seemed silly, as she'd seen everything and more. The terrycloth robe provided by the hotel wouldn't have covered half of him anyway, so he wrapped a bath sheet around his wide hips and opened the door a crack. Sun slipped in, as if trying not to be seen. She smiled at the bath sheet and said, "It would be impolite of me to remain dressed." So she stripped down to her underthings, so beautiful that he literally felt it as pain through the center of his body.

They sat together on the sofa wrapped in each other's arms, the lights turned low. "I didn't think Ji Yeon would ever get to sleep," she remarked.

"Hmm," Hugo answered, his face resting in the hollow of her neck where her shoulder began. Then he remembered the times on the Island when Aaron had been fussy or sick, so he asked, "Is she all right?"

"Just a tooth," Sun answered. "But it makes her cry."

"Oh, sorry." How had this happened, Hugo wondered, that she came to be here in his arms. _Just my luck_, he thought. Then in his imagination a crowd of women marched through his memory, one after another as if in a line. First came an older one, with a false leg and a thick Australian accent who said, "You make your own luck, Mr. Reyes." There was his mother, who slapped him hard when he'd said that he was cursed. Then in his mind's eye he saw that poor soul, Danielle Rousseau, who in the thick jungle of the Island where no one would go, the place called the Dangerous Territory, had held him up against her thin wiry body and told him that he was indeed cursed. Finally he saw the college girls laughing, "Budai, Budai," as they rubbed his belly.

He pulled Sun closer to him, breathing in her fresh garden scent. That's what it had to be, pure dumb luck.

Sun sighed. "Did I ever tell you that this hotel was where I first met Jin-Soo?"

"No," Hugo said, wanting to keep nuzzling her, wishing she wouldn't talk, wondering where she was going with this.

"He worked here as a doorman. It didn't go over well with my father."

"A doorman, huh."

"Not for long. My father's business, well, it's mine now. And it had certain unsavory aspects. Jin-Soo got drawn into them."

She crouched down beside him on the couch, resting her head on his stomach so that her voice was muffled when she spoke. "I was so angry at Jin-Soo. There were times I wanted him dead. And now he is." She rolled over onto her side and reached for where her wedding ring would have been, but she wasn't wearing it. Even so, the fingers of her right hand still twisted around the ring finger of her left, still searching. "Oh, Hurley," she sighed. "It wasn't Jin-Soo's fault. I got him into it."

"That must have sucked." Something occurred to Hugo, a thought which hung on like a low fever which he couldn't shake. "Sun, hey, you know, when I said Ji Yeon looked like Jin? You looked really sad, and it sounds crazy, but it almost looked like ... I dunno what it looked like," he finished, feeling lame and clumsy. "It's just like there was something there. Maybe it's none of my business. Never mind."

"No, it's OK," she said, moving out of his embrace but still close enough that he could feel the rhythm of her breath. "I can tell you. It doesn't matter now. Before Jin-Soo and I went to Australia, I had a lover." She waited a second for that to settle in. "His father owned this hotel. When I found out this was where you were staying, I almost couldn't come here."

"I'm glad you did."

Sun went on, "Supposedly he took his own life, but I think my father had him killed."

Hugo went white. "Dude," was all he could say. No wonder she was being so cautious. "This was, like, right before you went to Sydney? That must have been really rough."

Sun nodded. "Jin couldn't have children, so we thought. But that was before the Island, I guess. On the Island, when I found out I was pregnant, at first I didn't know what to do. I was miserable, thinking that the baby might not have been Jin's. Then that doctor, Juliet Burke, did a scan on me in the Dharma medical station. She told me that the baby was Jin's."

"They can tell that from a scan?"

"Not exactly. But they can tell how old the baby is by its size. By the dates, Ji Yeon was Jin's."

Hugo got it. "Which meant that if the baby was that other dude's, the baby would have been born on the Island all fine and stuff, like Aaron. So that stuff was all true."

"Stuff?"

"You know, what Juliet said. A lot of people didn't believe her."

"I know," Sun answered. "However, I couldn't take that chance."

"But if Ji Yeon was Jin's-"

"Yes. You understand. If the baby had been Jae Lee's, we wouldn't have had to leave. We could have stayed there like Rose and Bernard. Jin-Soo wouldn't have died." It came out of Sun in a tumble, as if she'd been thinking about it for many months, but had never been able to say it to anyone. She reached for her wedding ring again, her fingers lost and aimless. "Oh, Hurley," she sighed. "It all seems so stupid. Pointless."

Hugo stroked her face gently and said, "You have an awesome little girl. Although that bit about your dad, well, that did kind of freak me out."

"I'm not afraid of him anymore," Sun said, with a bite in her voice. "He's never going to hurt me or anyone else close to me again." Her body stiffened as she pulled her shoulders up. A fierce look rose in her eyes, and when she kissed him this time he felt her teeth up against his lips.

When they went to bed, she rode him hard, and Hugo almost didn't recognize her wild, almost anguished face in the dim night. Then her pleasure softened her, calmed her down, and she lay beside him, stroking his soft mound of belly. "_Budai_," he said, and she gave him one of her small laughs.

Then, too soon, Sun slipped out of his embrace and dressed. Once again she asked him to call for a taxi, but this time when she bid him good-bye, she hugged him hard, so that he could feel the steel of her resolve underneath the soft cashmere of her pale, beautifully-cut suit and her tender flesh. "I am sure we'll hear from Mr. Kwon tomorrow," she said right before she left.

Hugo said nothing, just gave her a light kiss. Afterwards, he lay awake for several hours, staring at the ceiling while a looming, ominous feeling hovered above him.

* * *

He slept in very late, only waking when early-afternoon sun shone bright through the western window. In the shower he looked down at the rolling hills of breast, the avalanche of belly, seeing his body for the first time as one which could spur desire and give pleasure as well. He'd just finished toweling himself off when the mid-afternoon call came.

"I talked to Mr. Kwon," Sun said. He tried to read her tone, but she sounded even colder and more distant than she normally did on the telephone. "Hurley, I have to see you."

"You know where to find me."

"Not at the hotel. There's a coffee shop down the street from the Sejong Center, just a few blocks from you. Can you meet me there in an hour?" The anguish rang in her voice, loud and clear.

"Sure, but Sun-"

"I have to go. I'll see you there at 3:00." Then she hung up.

* * *

Hugo wore his suit, because downtown Seoul definitely wasn't Los Angeles or Honolulu. Not everyone wore a suit, but the busy people hurrying through the crowded streets looked neat and put-together, not laid-back at all. The garment felt alien and constricting, even though the superb cut fit his body comfortably, because wearing something so formal just to go for coffee didn't set easily with him. He arrived early, to find that Sun had already taken a table on the sunniest part of the patio. When he moved forward to hug her, she stood up very straight. A slight hand motion and a tiny, discreet turn of the head signaled to him that he shouldn't, not here. "I ordered you a vanilla latte," she said.

"Awesome," Hugo replied, but his heart sank with a little jolt. That meant she was in a hurry, and couldn't stay long.

"I talked to Mr. Kwon." He said nothing, so Sun went on. "He said that we didn't have to come to see him. That he didn't need comforting." Her sad eyes were black hollows in the cold impassive mask of her public face.

"Jin was a pretty tough guy. Maybe it's like father, like son?"

"I don't know what to think, Hurley. It was a very strange conversation, crazy. Mr. Kwon doesn't believe that Jin is dead."

The warm late September day suddenly became very cold, and a powerful sense of unreality seized Hugo. What was he doing here in this strange city with this woman, with this unwelcome knowledge which presented itself like a rude, drunken cousin at a family picnic? "Uh, what?" he finally stuttered, but he knew the answer even before it came.

"Mr. Kwon says that he was out late one evening, doing some work on the dock where he tethers his boat, when suddenly he saw Jin-Soo standing there. He didn't think he was dreaming. Jin-Soo told him to keep the boat ready for him, because when Jin-Soo came back, he was going to work alongside his father just like he was supposed to have done all along." Sun trembled for an instant before going on, as if the words were being torn out of her. "Jin-Soo told his father that he was going to bring me back, to be a fisherman's wife." Now she was really shaking, as if the same cold wind which blew over Hugo chilled her as well. "I'm afraid I argued with him, that such a thing couldn't be. Why did I do that, Hurley? After all we've seen?"

"We've seen a lot," Hugo echoed.

"Is it possible?"

"That Jin is alive?" If that were really true, the enormity of what he had done, what they had done, washed over him like an acid bath. "Sun, when that freighter blew, it really blew. I dunno how anyone could have survived it."

"Mr. Kwon was so calm, Hurley. Don't you think if Jin-Soo was alive, I would feel it?"

"Sun, I don't think it works like that."

"So how does it work, then?"

"I don't know." Hugo didn't want to tell her what he had seen. His dead grandmother standing on the neighbor's deck during the loud, busy house party, right before the deck collapsed. Dave from Santa Rosa who had showed up on the Island, before Dave flung himself off the cliff. And the feeling that he couldn't seem to shake, that right out of the corner of his eye, things were watching him, hovering around him, although no matter how quickly he turned his head to catch them, he never could. Sun didn't know that he had been a mental patient. There was so much she didn't know about him, and at this point, there didn't seem to be any way to remedy that.

Sun finished her drink, picked up her clutch bag and said, "I can't live in a world where these things happen. Thank you, Hurley, for coming all this way. And for being willing to go with me to Incheon, even if it wasn't necessary."

At that point Hugo knew that whatever they had done, whatever those two nights had meant, it was over. "Hey, sure, no prob. Say hi to Ji Yeon for me."

She didn't answer, just glided like a graceful dancer into the car parked right outside the coffee shop, then sank into shadow behind the powerfully-built driver who sat hulked over the steering wheel, his eyes invisible behind mirrored sunglasses.

* * *

After Hugo returned to Los Angeles, he checked his phone every ten, fifteen minutes for a missed call. For all he knew, he could have been in the bathroom, or making another trip to the refrigerator. Or pumping gas, because God knows he burned it up driving up and down the Santa Monica freeway, as he traveled around the LA area like one of those birds whose navigation sense had been destroyed by atomic bombs, who circled randomly over thousands of miles of Pacific ocean as they searched vainly for land.

Or maybe he might have missed a call during the therapy sessions he'd recently started, three times a week. The middle-aged counselor reminded him far too much of that old psychic his dad had dug up somewhere, the one Hugo always suspected of being one of his dad's old girlfriends, before he had come back to Hugo's mom. The therapist wouldn't let him keep his cellphone on during their sessions, though.

Just like that horse-faced psychic, like Dr. Brooks from Santa Rosa with his white-blond hair and coke-bottle glasses, Hugo suspected that this current shrink was a fraud too.

At least she didn't want to talk about the Island, or any of the network of lies which Hugo navigated daily as if they were a shaky rope bridge laced over an abyss, about to collapse underneath him any moment. But each fifty-minute hour felt like three, as he gripped his silent phone hidden securely in the vast depths of his cargo pocket. About halfway through the session, reliable as clockwork, his heart would start to pound, then race, as he counted the minutes till he could get out of there and turn his phone back on.

It wasn't until the day after Thanksgiving, when his mother decorated the living room with a ten-foot aluminum Christmas tree covered with red glass Sacred Hearts and topped with a foot-tall gilt angel, that Hugo realized Sun-Hwa Paik wasn't going to call him. He would have to figure out something else to do with the rest of his life.

His father tried to help, was even sympathetic as he said, "So you went to Seoul, had a little vacation. What are you moping about? There are more fish in the sea. Go out and catch one."

Instead of answering, Hugo got into the Camaro, drove to the nearest Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack, and ordered a family-sized bucket of hot wings. He headed out toward Kate's house in West Hollywood, then remembered that she and Aaron had gone to Las Vegas to visit Cassidy Phillips. So he drove around Griffith Park a few times, then parked on a hilltop overlooking athletic fields empty in the December sun, because Christmas break hadn't started yet, and the children were still in school. With grim, methodical determination and no pleasure, he began to eat.

A month later, Hugo led the LAPD on a careening chase down the freeway. On that day the dead would no longer be denied, and for him, nothing would ever be the same again.

(_the end_)


End file.
